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Jaycee Dugard Files Lawsuit Against Federal Government

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS13) -- Jaycee Lee Dugard, the California woman who was kidnapped when she was 11 and held captive for 18 years, has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, her publicist announced Thursday.

Dugard is not seeking money for herself in the complaint, according to Thursday's press release. Instead, 100 percent of any claim awarded would be donated to The JAYC Foundation, Inc., a non-profit charity established to provide support and services for treatment of families recovering from abduction and the aftermath of traumatic experiences.

The complaint was filed Thursday morning in San Francisco U.S. District Court by her Los Angeles-based law firm after the federal government twice denied requests for mediation.

Dugard was kidnapped in the South Lake Tahoe area in 1991. The federal government had parole supervision responsibility over her abductor, Phillip Garrido, from his release from prison in 1988 on a previous rape conviction until the state took over his responsibility in 1999.

The state of California awarded Dugard and her two children, fathered by Garrido, a $20 million settlement in July for its role in Garrido's parole supervision.

According to the federal complaint, Garrido tested positive for drugs multiple times, a violation of his parole, but parole officers failed to report the failed tests. He once registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.45, a level normally associated with unconsciousness and possible death, the complaint says.

The complaint also alleges federal parole officers were mandated to make monthly visits to Garrido's Antioch home but failed to do so.

Instead, officers "routinely went months at a time without seeing Garrido and even failed to make a single visit to Garrido's home during at least three of the 10 years he was under federal parole supervision," according to the complaint, including 1992, the year after Dugard's abduction, and 1994, the year she gave birth to her first daughter.

The complaint also alleges several women, including his 1976 rape victim, reported sexual misconduct by Garrido, but his parole agents failed to follow up on the claims or report them to the U.S. Parole Commission.

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